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At the Diving Festival in Tokyo last week, INON announced several products, including a compact new underwater housing for the Panasonic GF1. The new X-2 housing features controls for almost every feature on the GF1, plus fiber optic bulkheads for external strobe sync. INON plans to support INON 45mm macro, 14-45mm, 7-14mm and 8mm fisheye lenses.

INON also announced a new MRS100 UIII macro port for the new Canon 100mm IS macro lens (on X-2 for Canon 50D), a camera base for 67mm lens adapters, and a camera/video base for INON underwater lights.

Sony has unveiled a new ultra-compact camera featuring APS-C sensor size and interchangeable lenses. The camera should feature a low-noise Exmor APS sensor and have 1080P AVCHD video capture capability. Sony has also been aggressive about introducing interesting technology into their compact cameras like panorama sweep, low-light imaging modes that reduce noise and blur, and GPS, which hopefully will make it into this new line. If Sony releases super wide-angle lenses, the new camera will compete very well with Micro Four Thirds cameras, which have smaller sensors than does the new Sony series.

PMA 2010 craziness is underway at the moment, and many new announcements show great promise for use in underwater photography. Sigma has announced an 8-16mm F4.5-5.6 DC HSM ultrawide-angle rectilinear zoom lens for cameras with APS-C crop sensors (12-24mm equiv). This translates to a 121.2° field of view when zoomed to 8mm.

The Sigma 8-16mm will be available for Sigma, Canon, Nikon, Pentax and Sony lens mounts.

DivePhotoGuide and Wetpixel are proud to announce the winners of the 5th annual Our World Underwater international underwater photography & video competition. The competition is in held in association with Our World Underwater and part of a joint series often referred to as the “Super Bowl” of international underwater imagery events, with world-class prizes, esteemed celebrity judges, and significant global media support.

Winning images are being shown at OWU’s evening film festival tonight to an audience of 1,500 attendees. Click through to see all of the winning images and videos.

Panasonic has introduced the world’s first camcorder to record 1080p @ 50/60 fps, the HDC-HS700 and HDC-TM700. These cameras have 3x CMOS sensors which record 1080p at 28mbps H.264 (VBR) and a 43mm f1.5 Leica Dicomar lens, giving the camera good lowlight capabilities. The HS700 has a built-in 240GB HDD and SDHC/XC slot, while the TM700 has 32GB built-in with the slot. The HS700 goes for US$1399 and the TM700 US$999.95 are will be available soon.

Photos of Seatool’s tiny underwater housing for the Panasonic DMC-GF1 micro four thirds camera are now available on Seatool’s website. Head over to Seatool’s website (in Japanese) to see just how small a housed GF1 can be! A compact dome port complements the GF1 and is a perfect match for Panasonic’s 7-14mm wide-angle lens.

An active discussion is underway regarding the use of the GF1 (and micro four thirds cameras) in the forums. No word of when distributors in the USA might see this housing.

The Bay Area Dive Show will be on April 30 and May 1, 2010, at the Santa Clara Convention Center about 45 minutes south of San Francisco, California.

If you act before Monday afternoon (Feb 22), you can get a free ticket to the exhibition floor (a $15 value) by providing your email address and mailing address. To get your free ticket, head on over to the Bay Area Dive Show website and click on the free ticket link.

Join Eric Cheng and Alex Mustard in an underwater photography expedition to Alaska in June 11-23, 2011. We’ll be aboard the liveaboard dive vessel, the Nautilus Explorer, for 13 days of exploration between Sitka and Ketchikan.

On the heels of ReefNet’s first public documentation expedition, marine life specialist and underwater videographer Kris Wilk leads a 16-day follow-up expedition to Indonesia’s Banda Sea this May. Participants will work as a team to intensively search for—and photograph—rare and undescribed marine species. Photos and videos contributed to ReefNet will be included in upcoming field guides jointly published by ReefNet & New World Publications (Humann & DeLoach).

Wetpixel is excited to co-sponsor this unique project: it’s a great opportunity to encounter new marine life, to learn from the experts, and to have your work published!

Keen photographers, videographers, and marine life enthusiasts of any experience level should check out the details. Space is limited!

With the annual Underwater Festival departing from Australia’s Byron Bay, local dive operator Sundive has picked up the slack and is this year hosting its first in-house photo shoot-out in May 2010. All underwater photo enthusiasts are invited to join in a week of great diving, great company, a little healthy competition and mostly heaps of fun.

With major prizes including a liveaboard trip with Rodney Fox Great White Shark Expeditions, dive gear and other dive trips, this is looking to be a great event for underwater photographers in the region.